


Cry Thief

by unveiled



Series: Snippets [5]
Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Thieves, F/F, Gen, Heist, Love at First Sight, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-28
Updated: 2012-02-28
Packaged: 2017-10-31 21:00:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/348327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unveiled/pseuds/unveiled
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Raven meets a far greater prize than a few measly papers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cry Thief

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [Adele's cover of "Last Nite"](http://thoughtsnotunveiled.tumblr.com/post/18294689033/adele-covers-the-strokes-last-nite-i-feel) (and the subsequent image of Raven as a cat burglar in a zippy, fun heist AU) and, honestly, my own overwhelming desire for XMFC-verse Mystique/Destiny. My _other_ X-Men OTP. I cast Irene Adler/Destiny in my original post for this story [at Tumblr](http://thoughtsnotunveiled.tumblr.com/post/18413894604/taking-off-from-this-have-a-bit-of-xmfc-au), with accompanying pictures.

_Oh, people they don't understand_   
_No, girlfriends they don't understand_   
_In spaceships they won't understand_   
_And me, I ain't ever gonna understand_

Raven couldn't help but give herself a twirl when she clipped past the mirrors lining the wall above the washroom basins, executing a 360° pirouette on the tips of her George at Asda patent heels — replicas, of course, her real toes keeping a solid grip on the marble tiles the way cheap shoes never could. This was the best skin she made for herself yet: Kitty Pryde, overawed intern, she of big corkscrew curls and Bambi-like brown eyes. She even had the real Kitty's adopted RP accent down pat.

And she'd managed to replicate everything after just one afternoon's worth of shadowing an oblivious teenager.

"Forgot something, miss?" said one of the security guards, friendly-like, as Raven-as-Kitty scuttled into the lift. The building was beginning to shut down for the evening, its communion of workaholics and over-achievers grudgingly leaving for the weekend.

Raven tucked her bangs back the way she'd seen Kitty do, self-consciously. "Yes, I hope they haven't locked up everything yet," she called out, the doors closing in on her last syllable.

She looked down at her watch, hoping it looked casual on the security cameras. The real Kitty was probably already on her train home, dreaming of WoW or Anonymous or whatever it was that techno-geeks were into. And speaking of geeks, Henry's cute little trojan horse should be taking effect in just about—

The lift doors pinged open.

_Perfect_. She had 8 minutes before the security system started working again, though with some luck they'd never notice the cameras were playing one freeze-frame on a continuous loop. She slipped into Erik Lehnsherr's office and shut the door behind her, heading straight for the locked filing cabinet. Bless Lehnsherr's distrust of the endurance of computing technology, and his stubborn disavowal of a paperless office.

Angel would kill her if she knew Raven was putting her tools to use this way, but it wasn't as if she couldn't have guessed what Raven had in mind when she asked to borrow Angel's neat lockpicks. Raven had just managed to jimmy one of the drawers open when the office door opened, the sound loud in the silent room.

"That's enough," said a husky, resonant female voice.

Raven whirled around, ruthlessly squashing the quavering of her form. The voice belonged to tall, slender woman with dark hair, the light from the corridor shining a halo around her body and — _oh, shit_ — a very illegal taser clutched in one hand and pointing straight at Raven.

_Don't panic_ , she told herself. To the woman, she said, in Kitty's voice, "I'm sorry, I was just putting in some extra research for my report. Mr. Lehnsherr said I could."

There was a pause. "You're not Katherine Pryde," said the woman firmly, and stepped closer, carefully. "I don't know who you are or what you're doing here, but rest assured I will find out."

This close, Raven could make out her prominent cheekbones and the soft point of her chin, and that there was something odd about the woman's eyes — almost as if they were, impossibly, entirely _white_. Which meant—

"You're _blind_ ," she blurted out. "What the fuck, can you even aim that thing?"

"I can see the future," said the woman. "Care to take your chances?"

Despite herself, Raven grinned. "Do I at least get a name before you tase me in the face?"

"Irene Adler," she said, after a few seconds of obvious calculation, eyebrows and mouth puckering into a frown.

The was absolutely no logical explanation for the way Raven's blood suddenly roared in her ears, like air sucking out into the vacuum of space. And in its place: the clarity of stars and impending death, absolute and undeniable.

"Well, Irene," Raven said, stretching the vowels into a drawl. "I'd love for us to get to know each other better, but I've got to go. Things to do, you understand."

Her body rippled, flowing into movement the exact same second Irene fired the taser. Raven grabbed Lehnsherr's chair with both hands as she dived to the right, letting her body's momentum and superhuman agility swing the chair around against the floor-to-ceiling glass window. Cold air rushed into the room in a shower of glass and shouts from the pavement, accompanying the distant crash of the unfortunate chair.

"Let's have coffee sometime," she said brightly, and threw herself out the window.

\------------------

"Something awesome happened to me today," Raven said much later, curled into a hand-knitted afghan in her brother's Oxford flat. Charles was lying on the sofa, propped up on pillows, pretending to doze off in lieu of fraternal disapproval over what he didn't need telepathy to know she'd been doing.

A book rested on his chest, something probably technically brilliant but artistically dull. Raven considered their surroundings: the haphazard stacks of books had grown taller since she was last here, which fit perfectly into Charles's aesthetic of bookish chic but meant they needed to look for a bigger place before Charles's wheelchair couldn't maneuver around the multiplying tomes.

One eye cracked open. "You've decided to stop engineering the downfall of my ex-boyfriend?" Charles said, piteously hopeful.

"I'm _in love_ ," Raven declared, spreading out her arms in a dramatic flourish.

"Lord help us all," Charles sighed.

 

**END**

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [All Good Things (The Just In Time Remix)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/817931) by [firstlightofeos](https://archiveofourown.org/users/firstlightofeos/pseuds/firstlightofeos)




End file.
